ICW alleges graft in school projects
A. Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A corruption watchdog alleged on Monday that education projects worth trillions of rupiah, including those funded by foreign agencies, were rife with corruption, and some of top culprits included officials with the Ministry of National Education.
Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) said it had received many reports of alleged corruption in projects related the to School- Based Management (SBM) scheme, funded by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB), the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and New Zealand.
"At least 10 percent of the funding for those projects has been lost due to corruption," said ICW program manager Ade Irawan, urging law enforcers to bring suspected corruptors to justice.
"We want tighter supervision and better law enforcement to be applied to stop the corruptors," Ade said in a seminar on Education and Corruption in Indonesia here.
Ade said his office had received reports of alleged monetary irregularities from several regencies, including Garut in West Java, Simalungun in North Sumatra and Sumenep in East Java.
He said school principals usually would bribe officials from the Ministry of National Education to get the money for SBM- related projects.
SBM is a system that was set up three years ago to encourage schools to propose projects based on their needs. The ministry directly disburses the funds to the schools if their proposals are approved.
The system, which is also being implemented in several other countries such as Cambodia, involve the parents in a School Committee, especially for drafting a proposal to be submitted to the Ministry of National Education.
Ade revealed that the ICW had recently done research in Jakarta and learned that most teachers and parents had never heard of the SBM system.
"If teachers and parents in Jakarta do not know about this program, we can imagine what it must be like for the parents and teachers in other regions," said Ade, suggesting that the government postpone new projects and improve the system.
Meanwhile, education observer Winarno Surachmad warned on Monday that corruption in schools by teachers and people in the education ministry would adversely affect the nation's future, even moreso that other ministries.
"Corruption in schools is be more dangerous than in any other arena. What good things are left to teach to our children?" Winarno asked in the seminar.
He also said the regional autonomy program as it related to the education sector was partly to blame for worsening corruption in schools.
Some problematic education projects
-------------------------------------------------------------------- Source names of projects value type of funding --------------------------------------------------------------------
World Bank West Java Basic Education US$130.2m loan
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East Java and East Nusa US$146.4m loan
Tenggara Secondary
Education
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Sulawesi and Eastern Island US$70.9m loan
Basic Education --------------------------------------------------------------------- Asian Deve- Senior Secondary Education US$198.6m loan lopment Bank --------------------------------------------------
Education Finance Study US$540,000 grant
--------------------------------------------------
Community Based Basic US$3.2m grant
Education for the Poor
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Decentralized Basic Education US$125m loan
-----------------------------------------------------
Secondary Edu US$300m loan
cation
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Decentralized Basic Education US$1.24m loan ------------------------------------------------------------------- ADB and Decentralized Education Mana- US$750,000 grant England gement
---------------------------------------------------
Minimum Basic Service for the US$937,000 grant
Poor -------------------------------------------------------------------- New Zealand School Based Management US$3m grant -------------------------------------------------------------------- Netherlands School Improvement Grant Rp 258b grant -------------------------------------------------------------------- Bank Mega School Based Management Rp 500m grant -------------------------------------------------------------------- Source: Indonesia Corruption Watch